The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (12 page)

I was readying to step back to chide her for resting in the midst of a battle, when she renewed the assault with what I thought was a high strike until she swung hard for my midsection. I barely caught the blow, but there was no satisfied grin from her. Aye, her mouth parted in a snarl and she came on with swift, vicious determination. Before, we had traded. Now she left me no room to counter.

“Good,” I told her. “Good!” Her attacks were nimble enough to disable all but the most experienced swordsmen. Being that she was a woman, of course, opponents with skill could just fend her off and wait for her to tire. But she did not. She rained blows, and as I maneuvered away I bethought of the men who must be watching. I would hear about this, surely. Did she mean to humiliate me? Aye, I could parry, then thrust, but I did not wish to hit her so hard. Najya seemed to have forgotten entirely that we sparred. Somehow I had underestimated my ability to anger her.

It was as I blocked a cut to my head that the front end of her sword’s leather came free. Fully three hand spans of the steel were revealed, the guard dangling like a shirtsleeve from the lower two-thirds of the weapon. I thought that would slow her, but she came on even more furiously.

“Najya,” I shouted, deflecting a blow. “The cover’s off!”

It was only as she drove at me with the point that I understood I was probably dueling something other than Najya.

The spirit had taken over.

Some of the soldiers had stepped up, bandaged Kharouf among them, and I sensed rather than saw their concern, for I had no sight to spare.

Najya shrieked and drove in with a fierce overhead blow, the same she’d said she lacked the strength to make. This I took on the side of my blade, and the power of it spread down through my arms and thence to my back and spine. Once more she shouted, but before she could land the blow I stepped in close and locked our hilts. I stared into her eyes. “Najya!” I cried, even as she strained against my blade. “Najya!”

All at once the fury faded and confusion bloomed across her face. Her strength ebbed and she slowly pulled back

“What’s happened—” Her eyes fell to her blade, and the drooping leather sleeve, and she flushed. “Asim … Asim, I am sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Gamal chuckled, and then the laughter spread to the other watching soldiers. I ignored them, but Najya’s flush deepened.

She lowered her eyes and spoke so softly that I almost did not hear her. “I am sorry.” She dropped the sword in the snow, turned, and dashed back to her tent. I was too troubled even to heed the jests of the soldiers who asked if she was too much woman for me, or if I was too little man.

I took her sword back to her tent and stood outside it. “Najya.”

A long moment passed before she answered. “I am here.”

“I have brought your sword.” I tried to put the best possible interpretation on what had happened. “It is not uncommon, in the heat of battle, to lose one’s temper—”

“That is not what happened,” she said bitterly. “You do not understand.” And then the canvas was thrust aside and her eyes stared despondently up at me, as if daring me to disagree. “There is something else within me, Asim. It struggles to win free, and control me.”

I licked my lips, wishing she hadn’t deduced that. You can be sure, at this point, that others were listening, for our combat had drawn much attention.

“Nonsense,” I said, feigning good cheer. I crouched low. “You have a warrior’s spirit, but it is yours.”

She looked on me with lips pressed tight. I raised a finger toward them. “We go to Harran, to help you,” I said softly. “We must not frighten the men.” I lay the sword in my hands, hilt toward her. “This talk of possession, in their hearing … Leave off it.”

She bowed her head as though in defeat, which troubled me further.

“Feel no shame. Nothing that has befallen is your doing.”

She said nothing, but she gently took the sword from me and lay it behind her.

“And your sword work is quite fine. The finest,” I finished, “I have ever seen by a woman.”

She gave me a last searching look, then withdrew without another word.

Dabir was furious, of course. I did not even have time to admit I knew I’d made a bad choice before he called me apart to ask how I could possibly have thought sparring with Najya was a good way to create a tranquil atmosphere. I could but turn up my hands.

Dabir repeated an admonition to keep her calm in at least two different ways, then, thankfully, fell silent on the matter, though I heard much about the fight from the men on our ride the next day, and, indeed, into the evening. No one but Kharouf, who grew more serious, seemed to take anything but amusement from the story, and, oddly enough, the combat seemed to have won over the men, who now spoke of her as their “little warrior.” I could not be sure what Najya thought, for she kept her distance and would not return my looks. She politely refused my offer of shatranj the next evening, and I realized with a pang how much I had come to look forward to her company.

6

The next morning we reached Harran. It was an ancient place, passed back and forth between many hands, many times, which is likely why it is so well fortified. Dabir had described it as sitting in the midst of a sun-scorched wasteland, but had neglected to mention a small river that winds along its eastern wall. In those strange times, ice rimmed the channel and dry, white snow blew across the horizon, but tracks of men and beast showed where the main trails lay. The wind had swept a few areas clean so that the flat earth shone brown and dark, and in other places piled the snow into high drifts reminiscent of the dunes I’d seen in the Empty Quarter.

As we hove into sight of the gate midmorning, we passed two long caravans moving toward us and saw another approaching the wall from the west. These we watched with care, but neither Sebitti nor their agents crept forth to challenge us.

“What are those?” I asked of Dabir, and pointed out strange structures clustered just outside the city—ribbed cylinders with small arched doorways half again the height of a man. They looked like no other dwellings I had ever seen, resembling nothing so much as immense overturned beehives. “Do people live in such things?”

“They do, and have,” he answered. “For a very, very long time. Adam and Eve might very well have lived in one of those, for they fled here after their expulsion. Harran must have been a rude shock after Eden.” Dabir smiled wryly. “To the south is a shrine to Sarah and Ibrahim, who dwelt and worshipped near a spring. As a result, there are many folk who go between the places on pilgrimage, and sight of ascetics and anchorites is common. Also,” he added, “there are thieves and beggars who play at being holy men.”

“That is no great surprise.”

“Sadly.”

Harran, I learned, prospered chiefly because it lay along a central trade route, so those portions of the city given over to merchants were well-designed. All the markets were roofed over with wood, forming long corridors filled with stalls. Even in that chill weather folk walked up and down them, looking over goods from many lands. There were rugs for sale, and spices, and weapons, and furniture, and food being served for hungry and thirsty passersby. The scent of cooked sheep set my stomach to grumbling. Dabir bought up a generous portion of lamb to give as a gift to his friend, and then we passed on. A brisk trade was running for robes and blankets in the markets, and folk shouted back and forth about prices that seemed high for such things—of course it is the way of merchants to raise the numbers when goods are in demand. Also there was talk of the strange cold weather. I overheard many wild theories about its cause—including the wrath of Allah, who is merciful—but not a one mentioned snow spirits or ancient bones.

The crowd was thick in places. I saw haughty Persians and garrulous Jews, stuffy Greeks with their guards, and shrewd-eyed Egyptians. There were even some Khazars, swaggering in their high boots, heads topped by furred hats. I watched carefully as we made our way through the city, alert always for men who monitored us too closely. Dabir led the way, the wrapped spear held upright in one hand like a staff, though he did not touch it to the ground. Najya walked behind me. This day she hid her face in a deep robe. Abdul led the escort behind.

Soon we fifteen had passed beyond the merchants’ quarter and into an older section of the city. We stabled the horses and stowed some of our gear at an inn, then turned down a winding side street, where Dabir stopped beneath a weathered sign with the image of an open scroll. The shop doors must once have been painted red, but the color had faded almost completely to a dull brown.

Dabir opened one of the doors. While he paused on the threshold for his eyes to adjust, I took the lamb meat from Abdul and told him to post men about the building’s exterior. Najya and I then followed Dabir through the doors, in time to hear a rough-edged voice call his name in pleased surprise.

I found myself in a rectangular room stuffed with papyrus and writing utensils and books of all sorts, organized on wall shelves and chests. Dim squares of sunlight shone high on the walls through small, screened windows.

A diminutive, potbellied man in his middle years was coming out from behind a counter, his face bright with a lopsided smile that showed small, well-tended teeth. He and Dabir embraced and exchanged warm greetings, and I thought then to observe him more closely, as Dabir might do. I could not quite guess his lineage. Azeri, perhaps, although he had something of the look of a Kurd as well. His robe was brown with frayed blue trim, worn thin in places, as was his carefully trimmed beard. The man resembled his store—both were somewhat shabby, but well-ordered.

“Why did you not send word of your coming?” Jibril said as they stepped apart.

“There was no time,” Dabir replied. “And for that I am sorry. We need your help.”

“It will be my pleasure.” I think Jibril meant to address me next, but his eyes were drawn to Najya, where they remained. He looked as though he had suddenly found horse droppings in his stew pot.

Dabir introduced her as though untroubled by Jibril’s reaction. “This is Najya binta Alimah, daughter of the famed general Delir al Khayr.”

Najya pulled down her hood to greet him, and her fine, straight black hair shone as she bowed her head.

“By God and his angels,” Jibril said breathlessly. “This is beyond me, Dabir.”

I did not know how he could tell anything simply by looking at her, nor, obviously, could Najya, whose face fell.

“This matter is far beyond
me,
” Dabir countered. “I need your help.”

Jibril shook his head quickly. “There is a woman in Raqqa—”

“I need you, Jibril. We barely reached you alive, even with a full escort of soldiers. We have little time.”

Jibril threw up his hands. “This is what you bring me, after all these years?”

“He brought a lamb, also,” I said.

Both Jibril and Dabir fixed me with the same peculiar look, and I realized then how foolish I’d sounded.

Two men a little younger than me emerged from a curtained doorway behind the counter. They were taller than Jibril, and a little wider, but strongly resembled him. Gruffly he introduced his sons as they made glad cries to Dabir, who grinned more broadly than I’d seen in days.

I think the sight of his family embracing Dabir so fondly is what finally brought Jibril around, for his frown eased slowly into a wistful smile. “Yes, yes,” he said. “We will have time for a visit. Ilias, Dabir has brought us a lamb. See that your wife gets to fixing it, then we can all feast together. But now Dabir and I must talk.”

Ilias seemed almost as pleased to lay sight on the lamb as he had Dabir, and took it gratefully. The other brother, Muhsin, clapped Dabir once more upon the shoulders and said he wished his own sons to meet him.

Then Jibril chased them away and tried to look dourly at us. He turned at last to me.

“You must be Captain Asim.” Something in the piercing way he considered me reminded me of my friend. “Dabir has told me much of you in his letters.”

“I am honored to meet you,” I replied.

“I don’t know that you should be. Come, though, all of you. Let’s see what you’ve gotten me involved with.”

He barred the outer doors, then beckoned us to follow him deeper into the building. We passed through another room of the shop very similar to the first, and then we four were seated in an inner room upon worn but comfortable cushions. Jibril told us this was the chamber where he showed visitors his most valuable items. It smelled, like the rest of the place, of parchment and old stone.

While a young girl poured tea for us, I looked around and was struck by how much it resembled our receiving room in Mosul, complete to cubbyholes with odd sculptures and curiosities and a small, high window in one wall. I grinned over at Dabir. “There is something familiar here,” I told him softly.

He nodded distractedly, watching Jibril, who waited impatiently for his granddaughter, or daughter—I was never sure—to depart. He bade her to close the lone door and, once she did so, arched an eyebrow at Dabir, which was somehow both a criticism and an invitation to speak.

Thus Dabir set to telling him all that we’d experienced since Najya had entered our lives. Jibril interrupted often with shrewd questions to improve his understanding. I had seen Dabir politely deferential many times, for a man who did not practice social niceties had no place in court, but with Jibril, he was uncharacteristically hesitant, as if he chose each word with great care. It made him seem younger somehow, and I could well imagine a beardless Dabir reporting other matters in this very room a decade earlier. As Jibril listened, his expressions drifted from curiosity to horror to astonishment and back again, though at no point did he offer suggestion or interpretation. Occasionally he asked a question of me, and he asked a number of Najya concerning her interactions with Koury and Gazi, though I learned nothing new from what she said.

Najya sat stiff-backed upon the cushion provided her, at my right hand, and strove mightily to look self-possessed. She did not entirely succeed, for she had pinned great hopes upon this man and eagerness was writ upon her manner. Dabir mentioned for the first time in front of her his worries that a spirit had been bonded to her and she stiffened further as her eyes narrowed above her veil.